The India Study Centre (ISC) at the Institute of Strategic Studies, Islamabad (ISSI) organized a seminar titled “August 5, 2019- An Assault on Kashmiri Identity” on August 4, 2022. The Chief Guest of the event was Senator Mushahid Hussain Syed, Chairman, Senate Defence Committee. Other distinguished speakers included Dr. Waleed Rasul, Director General, Institute of Multi-Track Dialogue; Justice Ali Nawaz Chowhan, former Chief Justice of the Gambia and elected International Judge of the United Nations; and Professor Dr. Kaleem Abbasi, Vice Chancellor University of Azad Jammu and Kashmir. Ms. Laura Schuurmans, a writer and independent researcher based in Indonesia, also sent in her remarks.
In his introductory remarks, Dr. Arshad Ali, Director India Study Centre, said that three years ago on August 5, 2019, India illegally and unilaterally revoked the special status of the Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK), which is not only the violation of international law but also of the UN Security Council resolutions, 4th Geneva Convention, and Shimla Accord. He emphasized that it is a well-known fact that Jammu and Kashmir is an incomplete and unfinished agenda of the partition of the subcontinent. For the past 75 years, India has resorted to ruthless oppression, committing grave human rights violations with impunity against the Kashmiri people to deny them their right of self-determination. The human rights situation in Kashmir has further deteriorated after August 5, 2019. Since then, the brutality of the Indian forces has resulted in the killing of more than 640 Kashmiris, among which 120 have been extra-judicially killed this year alone.
